Liberty Botswana stakes market claim
KOOBONYE RAMOKOPELWA’s
Customer is King. Any company which follows this old age mantra is most likely to become victorious. This is exactly what Joy Buno, the new Managing Director of liberty Life Botswana believes in. Below, he responds to questions on what she plans for the leading life insurer amid rising inflation, weak economy growth and limited disposable income.
BOTSWANA GUARDIAN: What major strategies are up your sleeve which could help Liberty cement its position among the leading insurers in the country?
JOY BUNO: Like Michael LeBoeuf once said “A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all”. I intend on deploying and executing plans that will ensure improvement of the customer experience. I believe if that is done well everything else will take care of itself.
GUARDIAN: COVID- 19 is still part and parcel of our economy. How is the company working on ensuring it has a sustained recovery post the pandemic?
BUNO: As an agile business that is centered around people at its core, during COVID- 19, we refreshed our brand promise so as to connect and resonate better with our clients. ‘ In It With You’ is not only a tagline but a commitment that carries the notion of how Liberty lives out its purpose of improving people’s lives while making their financial freedom possible; by being there to support them during their times of most profound human vulnerability.
GUARDIAN: As a newly appointed Managing Director of Liberty, what challenges are presenting themselves, both within the company and the insurance sector at large?
BUNO: I come in during a time when the economy is suppressed with the effects of both the pandemic and the Ukraine/ Russia war, affecting customers and potential customers’ wallets directly. We have since seen the reduction in the buying power mainly due to high inflation rate and this has since adversely affected us. All our customers and distributors are our partners on this life journey, and we intend to remain “in it with them” by continuously identifying and implementing solutions that ensure they remain covered during these trying times.
GUARDIAN:
In recent years, more and more services- oriented businesses like yours, have turned to digital ( as a platform for offering services). How are you transition into this space?
BUNO: Automation of all our key processes enabled all employees to work from home during the pandemic. Our business efficiency improved significantly, and we were able to deliver our promise to our clients. We were able to offer greater accessibility and seamless customer experience for Liberty Life policy holders and reiterated our promise of being “In It With You”. The transition is not an event, it is a journey that will ensure that through knowledge, advice, service, and convenience we deliver a world class customer experience.
GUARDIAN: What major projects can we expect from Liberty in the coming few years under your tenure?
BUNO: Expect nothing but easy to talk to and uncomplicated business processes, sense of humour; the kind that comes from 63 years of experience, empathetic approach, sincerity, optimism and open mindedness as we walk this road with all our stakeholders. Times may have changed and will continue to change but our purpose has remained our guiding light and our anchor; We improve people’s lives by making their financial freedom possible.
GUARDIAN: Work culture has now become entrenched in today’s corporates. As a new leader, what kind of culture is being inculcated within the company which will boost performance and ultimately growth?
BUNO: The biggest challenge I face every day is the debate I have within myself on whether I am meeting my aspirations of ensuring that we provide the right customer experience to all our valued clients and Partners, especially in the industry that we are in where empathy more than anything matters the most. As Daman Richards once said, ‘ Your customer doesn’t care how much you know until they know how much you care….’
GUARDIAN: What sustainable projects does the company plan to undertake now and into the future?
BUNO: One of our good corporate citizen objectives is that we equally need to invest in coaching our society on financial literacy as we are demonstrating through our financial literacy programme; Mind my Money. We therefore encourage everyone to download and access the app for financial education. This is a responsibility that we at Liberty have taken head on, and it all starts with us being a society that is conversant in the language of money, how to make it, how to spend it, how to save it, how to invest it and how to keep it.
GUARDIAN: How important is strong corporate governance systems to a company like Liberty?
BUNO: Liberty has been in existence since 1963 and has since grown significantly to become a pan African business. This growth did not happen by chance, Liberty has always been a good corporate citizen across many different jurisdictions. Botswana is no exception, good corporate governance is key to us, and we believe that it creates a stable infrastructure that allows for better, more ethical and balanced business. Moreover, we have a good relationship with all our regulators.
GUARDIAN: How important is the newly opened Francistown branch to
Liberty?
BUNO: As you may probably know, for the last 13 years, we have only had one office in Botswana, our Head Office, which is located at Fairscape Precinct in Gaborone. Even though we have clients across the country, our long- term plan has and remains to extend our geographic footprint and have physical presence in every town and Village to serve our clients better. This is already underway, and through our Direct Sales Agents ( DSAs) we are able to service clients in every town and village in Botswana.
One thing that we picked up when we were interacting with our clients outside Gaborone, is that there was a gap in the market for our policy members who are not in Gaborone. We learnt that without having a physical office, they always struggle with payment of premiums or even submission of claims. We then identified Botswana Post as a partner we can work with that would assist us in taking our product offering to the people, and I’m proud to
let you know that last year, December we launched the partnership, and it has been successfully running for the past 8 months.
GUARDIAN: Provide us with the outlook of the company amid rising inflation, reduced disposable income, rising domestic debt etc.
BUNO: One of the main challenges that we are facing as a business during these trying times is missed premiums as people are negatively impacted financially. We acknowledge that a lot of people find themselves with significantly reduced disposable income, some are without income and jobs. We therefore have been very flexible to enable cover continuity and have successfully engaged all clients that have missed premiums to help them find a personalised solution that ensures that they remain covered as we all know that Life insurance can provide a heartfelt solution to unforeseen events. Our commitment is simple, “Don’t let go and we won’t let go”.